This invention relates to voice control of electronic devices, control of a number of distributed processing systems, multi-pickup sensing apparatus, and to triangulation of a user's position.
Voice control of various electronic devices and networks is becoming more prevalent. Advances in signal processing hardware and algorithms are making it possible to build automatic speech recognition (ASR) voice response systems with larger vocabularies and higher accuracy. Also, inexpensive, highly integrated microelectronic circuitry is enabling the inclusion of simple voice response systems in many classes of low cost consumer products, including appliances, entertainment systems, voice-dialing telephones such as the GENIE(.TM.) GSM cellular telephone by Phillips Electronics in the Netherlands, and toys such as FURBY(.TM.) by Tiger Electronics of China Manufacturers of such microelectronic circuitry include Lucent, Motorola, Texas Instruments, and others, and general purpose microprocessor manufacturers like Intel, Motorola, IBM, and AMD.
Today's ASR-based voice response systems all use a single signal input that is picked up by a single microphone, processed by a signal processor or other processing means to extract the speech features, and sent through a recognition algorithm that matches the input signals with stored templates or models. The controlled device then uses the output of the match algorithm to control some aspect of its operation. Examples of today's voice response systems include interactive computer games and dictation software packages available for personal computers at any computer retailer, and products available from Lucent, such as Service Circuit System and Compact Service Node.
Several limitations exist with current implementations of ASR voice response systems. Current implementations are very susceptible to errors caused by ambient sound noise interfering with the speech. The microphone picks up ambient sounds in addition to the voice signal of interest. The voice recognition algorithms use voice models that assume a pure voice sound. Mixing ambient noise with the desired pure signal leads to reduced accuracy of the algorithm.
Special microphones are usually mounted quite close to the user's mouth on head-mounted booms are often employed to lessen ambient noise effects. Head mounted booms are sold by specialty telephone retailers, computer stores, microphone manufacturers including Shure Brothers, and are available at mass market retailers including RADIO SHACK(.TM.) stores, a division of Tandy Corp., in Fort Worth, Tex. Current art uses many techniques, such as moving the microphone closer to the source (as a boom microphone does), using highly directional microphones, and using soundproof rooms to contain the speaking.
Another limitation of the present art is that only a single ASR device can be used at a time. If a user has several ASR devices in use simultaneously, for example a computer, telephone, and intelligent home controller, it may be necessary to switch microphones often in order to talk to and therefore control the desired ASR device.
Since most head mounted microphones currently in use for ASR are corded (again to reduce interference and noise pickup), the user often feels tethered to the electronics box, hampering mobility through a room on environment.